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StudentsFirst also recommends that districts make individual teacher evaluations available to parents and require that districts inform parents when their child is placed in the classroom of a teacher rated “ineffective.”

What a laugh. Most principals don’t even know what they are doing, yet they are qualified to evaluate teachers when they were failed teachers themselves? Parents are going to be able to read evaluations that are totally slanted? Yeah, right. Looks like Michelle Rhee has never heard of privacy laws involving public employees.

Has anyone seen the “methodology” for the report? A team of “researchers” used an arbitrary rubric to assess the reform efforts. No quantitative data. My favorite part are the rubric indicators that only allow for a 4 (out of 4) or a 1 or 0. If I used a rubric like that in my classroom I’d be in deep trouble!!!

Thank you, Mr. Underhill. I figure I have three to five years left before they shove me out. I don’t have the emotional intelligence to keep my mouth shut. People like me, who teach Yeats, Blake, Mishima, Burroughs, Marquez, Morrison, Keats, Hughes, Byron, Roethke, Shakespeare, Corso, Dickens, Twain… Oh, and life skills, the Bill of Rights, social class, how an atom bomb is made, self-defense (hit first, fast, and hard), how to deal with the police (be polite and keep your mouth shut), what a lobbyist is… People like me who have my kids study Eisenhower’s Farewell Address and Barbara Jordan’s impeachment speech. I just had two of my seniors from last year come and thank me for preparing them for college, one of whom told me that her highest grade is a freshman lit class and she’s not even an English major.

I guess we should think about closing the states of California, Alabama, West Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. People living in those states should be given vouchers that pay for moves to other states.

Diane’s readers might want to watch an upcoming Frontline documentary about Rhee’s time in DC — it’s scheduled to run on PBS on Tuesday evening, 1/8 from 9:00 to 11:00 Eastern Time. A Washington Post article reports that the documentary will focus on allegations that widespread cheating inflated the student test scores and that the DC-initiated investigations that found little/no cheating intentionally ignored evidence demonstrating the cheating.

Thank you SO much for alerting us to this Frontline piece on the lying, distortions, etc. used to make this vulture of education unmasked! I have seen up close and personal how the agenda of this maniacal, pseudo educational plan will be the final death kneel for quality education and the extinction of college kids going into this snake pit of a profession! Sad to say it is just another example of the tissue thin veneer that is pasted to corporatists destructive plans. They merely glue on a virtuous sounding labels and instigate programs that are the exact opposite in design. “Students first” is just such a draconian example!
peach” are

“Frontline: The Education of Michelle Rhee” is on at 10 PM CST, and I’d mentioned this a couple of times in earlier posts. Make sure to check your local listings, though, because Frontline is usually on at 9 PM CST.

Today’s TV page in the Washington Post shows the Rhee Frontline show as being telecast on PBS at 10:00 pm (Eastern Time), not 9:00 pm as I wrote in my comment yesterday. And, it’s a 1-hour show, not a 2-hour show. Not sure where I got the wrong info that I put in my comment yesterday. My apologies.

Thanks for that information. I’m set to record that program.
It will be interesting to watch for two reasons, (1) who were the investigators- was is a classic case of who’s watching the henhouse, and (2) whether Pearson Publication is mentioned and in what context.

Unfortunately, I don’t see the show airing in Los Angeles, on Charter Communications that night. I would be very interested in seeing the documentary. Rhee was on Morning Joe, CNBC at 5:00 a.m. on 1/7. She was discussing the failure rates among various states on that show. I don’t understand why the media is so readily buying into her bogus research.

Today there is no real media. They do not check out anything and go with whatever whoever told them as gospel truth. We have been told multiple times in private by reporters that if they run that story they will never work again. For real news I watch “Russia Today.” Isn’t it funny that today to get real financial and world news I have to watch a Russian based news show. And it really is the best.

For instance why doesn’t anyone know about Michelle Rhee not having custody of her children as a quick search on the web will produce that information. How about the test cheating and the financial bungling with the largest revenue/student in the U.S. of about $29,000/student. You have to work hard to do that one. After all for almost all goods and services school districts pay about the same as much is based on world price. And when you have friends who need some extra party money you certainly cannot get a deal now can you?

On Morning Joe, they were discussing some of the poorly rated states (I think they had just mentioned Wyoming and Montana) and Joe was asking Michelle what the deal was with these states…he said, “and these are RED states…” with surprise and question in his voice. I couldn’t see her face because I was listening on XM but would love to go back and watch her response. How did this self-serving incompetent NON-educator get in such a position to have a voice that gets not just heard but catered to? Joe was spoon feeding her questions. It was a silver spoon.

Think Rhee released her report today in anticipation of a glowing Frontline segment on her tomorrow? If Merrow fails to reveal what this woman is really all about, people need to show him the evidence and call him on his poor investigative journalism en masse,

Years ago, coincidentally around the time that Rhee put tape on her students’ mouths, a first year teacher did the same thing at the private school where I taught at the time and she was fired immediately. Michelle Rhee’s “career” in education should have ended right then and there, too, but those designated as “elite” enjoy privileges not afforded to the rest of us.

Rhee did not subsequently become an expert in child development, learning and teaching. She went on to study “public policy,” in order to tell everyone else how to do what she failed at herself (apparently she was assigned a co-teacher who was more skilled).

No one with an ounce of sense should be listening to Rhee and her wack-a-doodle perspectives on a field she knows so little about and which she has advanced in only because of patronage. Rhee’s agenda and prescriptions are clearly for the demise of public education and its take-over by profiteers.

Let’s face it, Michelle Rhee is a brilliant person. There are also many brilliant people in our world that use there intelligence to prosper by breaking laws. We call them criminals.

For Rhee to be so out of touch with reality that she would actually tape students mouths shut without considering the harm to the students when attempting to remove the tape, is one thing, but to actually “brag” about it in public is really strange! How delusional can one be!

I don’t how brilliant Rhee really is. We know she has PR people and it sounds like she mostly follows a script consisting of a lot of corporate sponsored “reform” cliches. When she goes off script, she appears to have foot-in-mouth disease.

I don’t know if she thinks she’s teflon, if has a huge ego or if her executive functions are poor (or all three), but you’re right: To be telling the story about taping her students mouths shut, as DC Chancellor, to a newly hired crop of teachers, as well as the story about not bringing emergency cards on a field trip, suggest poor planning skills and lack of foresight. Personally, I also had a problem with her imitation of her student’s use of Ebonics.

Three cheers for a pithy, revealing portrait of Rhee! If vignettes about her abusive, destructive “teaching styles” is the goal of the Bush Corporates, God help the nation! If Jeb, the new rising star in the globalist pantheon,is what awaits us in the wings, it will only increase the instillation of such destructive trends. Any investigation of who are the moneyed interest in Charter corporations and public school materials in NCLB and Race to the top (an oxymoron if ever there was one) will find it rife with Bush family
nepotism!

Not feeling remorse for inflicting harm on others is sociopathic, and clearly she does not regret putting tape on the mouths of an entire class of 8 year olds, whose skin came off when the tape was removed. She herself described them as 35 kids who were crying and had bloody mouths.

So no regrets about causing 35 babies to bleed and cry after taping their mouths, so she wouldn’t always be seen as the teacher with the loud class and poor classroom management skills, and then to claim that she’s all about putting “StudentsFirst”?

Cosmic Tinkerer, thank you for bringing up a point that has bothered me for a while.

The most Rhee has been able to say [at least publicly] about her own awesome record as a teacher is that her principal told her in a one-one-one meeting that she was—well, whatever Rhee says, because to this day I don’t know of any public comment by her principal or private official documentation affirming the veracity of Rhee’s self-aggrandizing account. *See Mark Collins comment above re teacher evals.* While I know from firsthand experience that anyone I ever worked with at the elementary and high schools I worked in would have been fired immediately—to the cheers of everyone in the school—if they had done the same thing, there was something about the whole incident that has stuck in my craw for a long time.

It suddenly dawned on me a few days ago that the mouth-taping incident [which was surely common knowledge among those working at and attending the school] was not simply ignored but accepted, i.e., that perhaps the whole school had an uncomfortably lax attitude toward abusive behavior by its staff. I know that may unfairly malign some very good and hardworking people, so let me amend that to say that at the very least the administration of the school created an atmosphere that tolerated certain behaviors that would have been totally unacceptable in any public school I worked in or attended.

Hence, I question in all respects the judgment of the principal and other administrators and that of those who hired them. At this point personal testimonials or written evals of Rhee’s effectiveness as a teacher by her principal and other administrators and the charter operators are without merit.

What a mockery, then, when the Rheephormistsas mouth the words “no excuses” when they let themselves off the hook all the time for their own egregious actions.

KrazyTA: Yes, it’s possible that there was a hinky school culture where Rhee was employed. At the time, it was a privatized school managed by Education Alternatives, Inc (EAI). I think they had very good reason to assign her a co-teacher after her first year though…

Funny that the media blizz came out days before the PBS Night-Line report on the cheating scandal in DC. Michelle goes on all the media outlets to tell “the truth”. No dissenting opinions, just fair and balanced reporting. Newspapers and the top news outlets should drown out the truth on Nightline’s Video this Tuesday: http://t.co/UeQcoYo7

Not one question about all the allegations, about how parent groups are forming across the country to fight her. News commentators are not reporters. We have very few reporters any more only personalities.

I think you’ve hit on exactly the problem with how those of us who are for public education and student-centered policy have lost this public relation battle. Where is the report card based on pro-learning policy to which governors have to answer?

We are being out-flanked. Speaking for policies that are best for children are teachers’ unions. Speaking for policies that line the pockets of scoundrels are organizations with names like “Students First.” To the uninformed, which do you think sounds more beneficial to students?

When we use logic, and they use good marketing/campaign/PR tactics, we lose the debate. Putting out a bogus report card and making governors answer for why they got a “D” or an “F” is marketing genius. Our biggest mistake is that we didn’t do it first.

When are we going to learn that we live in an age of soundbites and spin? Until we do, we’re unlikely to be able to make the changes we want.

I live in Seattle, I’m 53 and this is my 8th year teaching. On a ‘good’ day I see the union that takes my dues as running campaigns worthy of Dud-kakis 1988. The political incompetence is stunning. In 14 more years of chasing the ball further and further right so that liars can’t lie about us, so that we can say we’re bi-partisan!, there won’t be much worth fighting for. Of course, by then, today’s “leaders” will have had 10 or so years jetting around the USA on the dime of Gates & Walton selling out working stiffs under the guise of being ‘moderate’.
Why can’t the “leaders” on “our” side hire people to market The Truth to win against liars? Cuz they aren’t leaders … cuz they aren’t on our side?
rmm.

Mike, I agree wholeheartedly about the pr battle. Where are AFT, NEA? Where is their list of districts that really do put students first, that don’t unfairly treat teachers, that don’t try to squeeze profits from a public good? I wish I knew.

To anyone who has followed her career since she was DC’s favorite girl under the mayor,
like I have, knows her mask was never tightly put on in the first place…One can see
right through her greed and self serving agenda…She and her so called “reforms” too,
shall pass…

I so wish we would stop mincing words and pretending ignorance/outrage…Rhee is merely doing the work of her masters, the oligarchs….. and doing it well….. way over time to accept and deal with the reality of what is going on in this country… what’s happening to public education is just one aspect of that…maybe the final strategy being implemented…

Obama has been one of them since at least 1995 along with Duncan. They come from Chicago which has been behind this privatizaton from the beginning through Renaissance 2000. He really is just one of their puppets as he does not have the cash. The cash is controlling all now.

What is the answer to public education getting it right? Bought a home in an area with exemplary school and what is supposed to be a highly rated school distict. The elementary school is in a feeder pattern of a high school that has been rated in the top 100 high schools in America. Many parents including myself are hiring tutors to catch their kids up on basics such as math facts and writing skills instead of for enrichment. At school they are making high grades in math and language arts even though they don’t know their multiplication facts or how to write a paragraph.
When parents complain their children weren’t prepared for junior high math, the principal defends they are doing a good job and brushes them off instead of taking parents concerns seriously and realizing there may be something to what the parents are saying.
Very frustrated that paying so much in taxes as well as in tutoring costs and still concerned child isn’t getting a solid education unless I am willing to spend more.
District has slowly been lowering the bar for all children. For example, instead of reading x words per minute by a certain grade, they have been lowering it by 10 words per minute every couple of years.
What are my options? Not care and be happy with the local neighborhood school because it is better than many of the other schools in the distict? Homeschool? Chater School? Try private school.
Even good schools are failing our kids. We need to have a solid base in elementary school to be the foundation for future learning. Why is that so hard to do?
I am not convinced more money is the answer based off what I have observed at my children’s elementary school.

By the way, I enjoyed your book The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Interesting to compare my experience in education to what you write about and what I see happing in today’s public schools. I can remember kids in high school who were very poor writers almost to the point of being illiterate. Many of them ended up in jail. I graduated from high school in 1982. I myself didn’t have very good writing skills. Now I see that possibly happening with my children unless I hire a tutor to get what they aren’t getting in Elementary school. Some of the problem may have to do with teaching to the test and no more.
I grew up poor with very little parent involvement. Trying to change that with my children so extremely disappointed so far with public education in what is suppose to be a good school. See that a charter school is not the answer. Don’t feel could do an adequate job in homeschooling and would be upset taxes go to public schools and couldn’t take with me. Would prefer a local neighborhood school but finding it is lacking.
Would public schools be better if private schools were disallowed and everyone had a vested interest in the success of public education?

When my sons were little, a successful parent gave me this advice: Respond to the interests of your child. She gave me some examples, such as “If your son shows an interest in geology, run to the nearest library to check out books on the subject, take him on rock collecting field trips, and enroll him in summer science workshops.” I listened to her advice and was thrilled when my sons were admitted to Harvard and Stanford. Each son had totally different interests; one is a scientist who wasn’t strong in reading and writing in school and the other is a lawyer who WAS good at reading and writing but doesn’t share his brother’s aptitude for science.

Remember that YOU, the parent, are the primary educator of your children. Interview the parents of high achievers who love what they do and consider their advice. Here’s my advice: Never force your children to do tedious tasks, such as memorizing math facts or “reading x words per minute.” These activities often lead to scholastic burnout. If you want your child to succeed, keep the joy of learning alive because it’s the key to success.

I’m sad that the principal brushed parents off–job 1, she/he should be communicating closely with parents. Another area that could be a cause of the problems is all the test prep. and testing that goes on now in EVERY school in the country. My experience has been (as a teacher-parent) that multiplication knowledge, for example, has, indeed, been skipped over in favor of using calculators (this is permitted–and even encouraged–on/for standardized test{s/ing}).
I hope that the parents can convince the principal to sit down with you all. I’d advise you to ask the teachers to help this come about, but if she/he brushed you off, I have to imagine that her/his communication with staff is every bit as bad or, perhaps, even worse, and that the teachers would just end up getting into trouble.

Perhaps my children’s experience was similar, F. P. I understood the pressures the administration was under because of NCLB, but I felt that test prep narrowed the curriculum far too much. Writing was not taught very well, neither was the foreign language or science. It was very difficult to bring these issues up with the administration.

Maybe you don’t think money is the answer, but I work at LAUSD and I have had an increase of eight students on top of the 20 I already teach. Library time was taken off the schedule, field trips, computer lab, and my teaching time has been reduced because I now have to serve a breakfast loaded with carbohydrates first thing in the
morning. Sorry, but finance is part of what makes a school function.
Don’t have children if you don’t want to pay for them. Democracy
isn’t free and education will become more expensive if charters and
private schools are the only options. I fear the price is something our country can’t afford.

Michelle Rhee is coming to Philadelphia in February to speak at the Free Library (wait, does she want to privatize them, too?). I assume she is/will be on a speaking tour. Find out whether she is coming to your town and go out and hand out flyers educating those coming to hear her. She usually makes $35-50K on each stop.

This is all they understand. If so, give it to them. You should have seen Steven Brill run when confronted in L.A. If you want to watch the entire speach of Michelle Rhee in L.A. go to George1la on You Tube and it is all there uncut as is Gloria Romero who runs DFER in California. All is uncut, no spin here.

They have declared war on you confront them and see if they like it. Watch the spin machine turn on with the smoke and mirrors. Then see if they can answer the real hard to the point questions. It’s always fun to see what happens.

Here’s what I don’t get: why does the mainstream media give ANY credibility to this report? And how does the NYTimes headline call “StudentsFirst” an advocacy group? I’m proud that my State was among those getting an “F”… and happy to see that our right wing newspaper hasn’t jumped on the “F” rating as proof that things are amiss…

Sadly, even our greatest newspapers are struggling to stay afloat. These papers too are dependent on the oligarchs. In both the Washington Post and the New York Times, journalists were punished for publishing stories not favorable to education “reform” and for printing the truth about the inherent fraud. Who ever thought this would happen in America? The good news is that as the effects of this recession are waning, citizens are paying more attention to the theft of their schools.

“effects of this recession are waning”?????? The new higher taxes will keep growth slow. If the Republicans don’t get rolled again, and the debt ceiling does not go up, and the sequester happens, look for downgraded securities rating, increased interest rates to still get people to lend against the higher risk, and then depression ahead, unless 2% growth is the “new normal.” Welcome to Greece on the Mississippi.

Well, just look at CNN and what they did to Diane (haven’t watched CNN since, & never will unless they change their management & reporting). Jim Walton was, at that time, the CNN Worldwide President. (Not sure who the new one is.)

As a friend of mines grandfather taught him “I hear real good, but I see a whole lot better.” Her policies have always stated who she really is. Her career tells you who controls her and when it all happened. All you have to do is read and that other thing, “Critical Thinking.” If anyone really been around the block these signs are tooooooo apparent.

So let’s call it what it really is “Students Last.” Nothing like truth in advertising.

I think curricula should be examined closely, no matter what side of this fence you are on. The discovery math curriculum, so popular with educators over the past few decades, has led many students astray. As Frustrated Parent pointed out, too many students end up not knowing math facts and fall behind in high school. Non English learners have an especially difficult time with these heavy text oriented math books. Many students have to be tutored or take remedial math in college, which is a waste of time and resources. In Seattle parents have been fighting this battle for years and the District has not listened. I am not a fan of charters but I also think public schools could do better with improved curricula.

I would like to thank you for speaking out on this, Dr., Ravitch. Your response in today’s LA Times was not on the “front page” like “California gets F grade from education advocacy group” . The attack on the Social Contract and our public sphere continues barely abated by nihilist privatizers, shills and hacks like Ms Rhee,.

You think only of the advantages to profiteers. “Nihilist” is an excellent description of privatizers whose aim is to demonstrate that under-resourced schools in low-income areas deserve to be shut down, so they can reopen them as unregulated charters, raid the public coffers and not use that money for educating the neediest students in the neighborhood, so their test scores rise and their profits increase.

Educational nihilism ensures there will be blighted schools in already blighted communities, as any remaining public schools will be left with the most difficult and costly students to teach, but not given the resources to meet their needs. Politicians like Rahm are in collusion, assuring that the 25% he writes off as never going to amount to anything are left to attend resource-starved schools with a pipleline to prison. It’s sure to be a self-fulfilling prophesy.

That’s advantageous for profiteers, including privatized prisons and others who consider the neediest students to be unworthy of having their needs met, but it’s very nihilistic for the children and their communities.

If only Michelle Rhee could see the truth about reform, could you imagine if we got her on our side? In the mean time, congratulations to the F states and other “lower” states!! And good job New Mexico!! (My state)

How true! Living in Denver, a state that got a “B” grade; I dearly wish we could have
been rated an “F”…would give teachers such as I a hope that is non-existent for a
brighter academic future. She is surely speeding public education over the cliffs
of “reform.to the shipwreck of an Orwellian reality”

She will never have an “Aha” moment about reform as she is the
catalyst for many ofl the destructive trends public education is being eviscerated with.
That would be like the sheep asking the wolf to become a vegetarian!

I have to respectfully disagree with you, J.J. She cares nothing about truth or respect for others. Even before she kick-started & promoted all this nonsense, no one can forget that SHE DUCT-TAPED THE MOUTHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN.
SHE TAUGHT FOR ONLY TWO YEARS, and proclaims herself an expert. We don’t need her, and we don’t want her. She has absolutely ZERO credibility in the area of education. She is in it for the money and self-aggrandizement–she calls children “assets,” and she calls herself a mother in order to justify her Newtown comments, but gave up custody of her own children (how many mothers do that? And–lucky for them, for she might have duct-taped their mouths as well). Finally, I have to agree with Susan Nunes and Cosmic Tinker who commented earlier–she exhibits every sign of possessing a sociopathic personality.
Instead of engaging in public speaking, she should be engaging in serious therapy.

Our organization calls into question the methodology of these report cards. We released our own report cards today rating states on the cost of duct tape, how low they have kept teacher salaries, how understanding they are in potential fraud cases, and whether they approve of corporal punishment. We found Oklahoma to be far superior to Florida or Louisiana.

I don’t know why she is banging on California so much as they are totally getting their way in reality. Considering that she is pushing privatization and corporatization, charter schools and such, all should read the latest, Sept. 2010, DOE OIG report on the total lack of accountability of charter schools at any level in Florida, Arizona and California. This report is DOE-OIG/A02L0002. Use the real world on them. They do not know what to do with that.

This report card might be further reason why the professional Democrats on her staff left. If they ever want to work in party politics again, it would be hard to be seen as supporting the creation scientists in Louisiana or the politics of Jeb Bush in Florida.

Rhee decided she had to choose a party and it wasn’t the dems. I don’t blame her. They tend to have less money and less patience with frauds. Also, it’s possible their usually superior reasoning ability and allegiance to the reality-based community will eventually kick in on the subject of public education.

How can you say that, when the leader-in-chief of the Democrats, President Obama, is the grandest fraud we have seen for a long time, much worst than Bush. He sends his children to private school while destroying public schools. He depends on the poor and ignorant for votes but goes on billion dollar vacations. He is the elitist of the elite, yet has the allegiance of the union working stiff. And the thought of a Democrat ever having let reason exit her lips (as opposed to character malignment, of which there is a constant spew in political debate) or having lost her virgin utopianism to the touch of reality is shocking. What a complete lack of self-knowledge.

Jimmy Carter worked it out with Amy. He wasn’t a hypocrite. The secret service would have been able to handle security, so Obama needn’t have been concerned with that. He wanted to make sure Malia and ????? got the best possible elite education available in his area. He wanted to make sure that they hung out with “the right people” as well. He is a elitist as the worst Republican. Martha’s Vinyard. Etc. Their problem will be finding good work to do and good men to marry. They have to be gotten into a good college. Can’t do that from just any old neighborhood school in DC. I don’t fault the President for his parenting, just his hypocritical politics,just like all those public school teachers who sent their kids to me, in a private school, to get them ready for U of M Engineering or Bryn Mawr, which I was able to do, and this when they had available to them one of the best public systems in the nation. They voted Democrat too, but just preferred the small classes, abundant sports and extra currics, and the personal atmosphere where I taught. There’s no intrinsic reason why what I did in a private school can’t be done in a public school, but the unselected student body often brings down the teaching. Nothing intrinsically wrong with public schools except the politics of its staff. But, one knows who butters one’s bread, or thinks one knows, but now that there’s less bread, we get bleating and confusion. Reform cannot be stopped because the money to do so will never be forthcoming again. When everyone on this blog supports the NRA, then maybe you’ll have credibility with the commons again. Not so now.

When did they allow pornography on basic cable???? Oh my lord, I just watched the clip of “Morning Joe” with the infamous Ms. Rhee, and it basically was three guys attaching their lips to her tucchus. I have to go and take another shower I feel dirty.

“Radical” Fighting to Put Students First should be a must read for all studentsfirst.org members! Michelle Rhee’s new book, “RADICAL: Fighting to Put Students First,” is now in stores! For more information about where you can find it, to read an excerpt from the book, and to share your story about education in America visit the official site at http://www.edradical.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/edradical.

“Waiting for Superman” the documentary and Bloomberg documentary “Risk Takers” Michelle Rhee should a required screening for all studentsfirst.org members. I saw them on Netflix and became an instant member of studentsfirst.org and Michelle Rhee follower.

“Won’t Back down” the movie is another example to screen to all studentsfirst.org members.